American Idol 10, May 11 – Lady Gaga Mentors Final 4

Lauren was surprised to find out Gaga was their mentor, as she feels she’s awesome. She’s singing Trouble by Elvis Presley, and is paying attention to the lyrics, because it says she’s evil, and she doesn’t want America to think that’s her. Jimmy wants her to put on the character of an evil person. Gaga tells her when she was 16, she was way too weird to be on Idol, and they would have shut the door right in her face. Jimmy thinks Gaga is a good matchup with Lauren for talking about insecurities and being evil. Lauren knows she has to pull out something different to avoid the bottom two again. Onstage tonight, she’s playing the Haley Reinhart game.

Steven doesn’t believe Lauren is evil, but calls it well-done, saying the character came out again. And he just loves her, but she knows that. Jennifer saw a performance quality when she came out that she hadn’t seen before. It was total attack and was really good. It had her asking who it was. It was a seriously good performance, and vocally it was really good. They saw a maturity they hadn’t seen in her before. Randy notes she has this fun side of her, a rocker kin of attitude with the bluesy side, and he really enjoyed it. That’s what she’s gotta do, let go.

Mike Stoller is in the audience saying to hear others sing your songs is a thrill, and he knows Jerry would feel the same, but it under the wather this week so couldn’t make it.

James is singing Love Portion No. 9, and tells Jimmy he’s going for a Bad Company/Paul Rogers feel. Jimmy questions whether it’s Paul or Ginger Rogers. Gaga wants him to get it in his body more, saying Elvis was all about moving his hips. Jimmy notes James was taking a casual approach to this, and Gaga wasn’t having it. She gets up and physically moves his hips. He then pulls it out for her, and she feels he looks sexy. He puts all the energy into it tonight. He even plays with the audience a little with some delays at the end.

Jennifer tells James that it showed her that he could sing anything. She wasn’t sure about the song for him, as she was thinking more Jailhouse Rock, but was absolutely wrong. He takes any song and puts the James thing on it. It was a really good performance. Randy hopes that all four of them are in it to win it, but James slayed the Journey song really badly, and it doesn’t matter what song it is. It’s what he loves about sports. James is now peaking at the right time. He’s having a moment every single week, and that was hot too. Steven notes where James comes from and where he is now is incredible. What he can’t do with his voice he just did tonight.

While Haley did do really well tonight with her first song, at this point in the competition, you should know who you are and what songs are good choices. You need to be hitting it every single song, and this is the second week in a row where she rocked one song, but came up short in the second. It still may have saved her, though. It will most likely be her or Lauren going home. Lauren seems to have sparked a little too late.

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